Node wars
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God Spike Scholar PvE objective during the Harness the Godspike node war event.[2]
Scholars are going to spawn across the POI. They'll be marked on our map and they're going to increase the time it's required for the enemy to channel; and drop a hefty amount of the materials we need to turn in to be able to channel ourselves.[3] – Chris Justo
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Node war objective |
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Mayors may declare war on another node and rally citizens to the cause.[4][5][6]
- Different node war types can be declared by the Mayor.[7][8]
- It costs resources to declare a node war. These are able to be gathered through special mayoral commissions relating to war preparations.[4] Additionally, Mayors may only declare war on nodes with sufficiently low Node-to-node reputation scores. This requirement may be disabled or reduced for Alpha-2 testing. Accordingly the frequency of node wars in Alpha-2 will likely be higher than in the final game.[9][10]
- We don't want mayors running around in Ashes of Creation just perma flagging the whole world into a state of PvP, well it's going to cost you some resources to do that.[4] – Chris Justo
- Node wars can be declared at any time, but node war events will only spawn during server prime-time.[11][12]
- Node wars are structured into phases, and each phase consists of events. Winning phases and events offer long-term and short-term rewards.[16]
- A war contains phases and phases contain events. So, there are conditions to win a phase and then there are conditions to win a war. Winning a phase gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and some more long-term rewards. Winning events gets you some amount of in-the-moment rewards and long-term rewards. And then the war is the massive objective that you're competing to towards.[16] – Chris Justo
- Node wars affect reputation between the warring nodes.[17][18]
- We have conditions that you can set between nodes with regards to either nodes being friendly with each other and acting trade alliances, or they can declare war on nodes similar to how guild wars may function in different games, where those citizens become hostile to each other based on the player government that's elected in the particular node. So those systems all cater to allowing a conflict that's meaningful and that also provides a non-imbalanced relationship between stronger guilds and not as strong guilds.[19] – Steven Sharif
- Q: Are there any plans to have upkeep cost to war in addition to the initiation costs? It would be incredibly compelling to know that crafters and gatherers would have to work double time to ensure that the war can go on, or even stop supporting the war if they find it unnecessary.
- A: Not necessarily within the war context, however I think the crux of that question is, how do we include material resource requirements, active artisanship, engagement, all of these other gameplay systems: How are they interconnected with a political event like war? And the way we achieve that is obviously there are things that can enhance your war preparedness or your war efficacy through the use of unique weapons during war. Unique upgrades to your guards by supplying resources to the barracks so that you have stronger guards at your headquarters, or weapons and shields and armors that can be utilized through the barracks system. In addition, vehicle support for sieges. There's a lot of different ways where crafting and artisanship plays a role as enhancing, not necessarily maintaining, a particular war or feature.[20] – Steven Sharif
- Node war participants who die can select to respawn at the War Camp, their Home shrine or their nearest Attuned shrine.[21]
- Killing the Mayor and other special positions within the opposing node, such as heads of religious or social organizations, will accrue more victory points during the war. These positions may also have powerful abilities that can be used during war and sieges, such as Mayoral skills.[22]
- Q: Will there be a scoreboard detailing the most active participants achievements during the node war. Things like: players KDA, damage, healing done, objectives, etc.
- A: You'll be able to see yours for sure and you may be able to see others if they opt-in.[23] – Steven Sharif
Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.
- Social organizations quests will either be cooperative or adversarial based on the war status of their parent nodes.[15]
Node war types
Alpha-2 Node relationships UI panel showing the status of a Territory control node war between Miraleth and Winstead.[24]
Different types of node wars can be declared by Mayors.[25][7][8]
- Territory control wars spawn POI objectives in the ZOIs of both nodes. Nodes that win these objectives will be able to gain Node XP from these locations. A Luck buff will also be granted to node citizens that increases loot drops while farming there.[26][7][8]
- Service denial wars will disable certain service buildings in the opposing node, such as the Caravansary.[25][7]
- Wars that enable theft of Relics from the opposing node.[25]
- Wars that siphon gold from the opposing node's treasury.[7]
- Wars that allow temporary takeover of Mayorship from the opposing node.[7]
- Cooperative node wars will enable multiple nodes to joint declare war on a single node.[27]
- Additional node war event types will be introduced during Alpha-2.[28]
- There's a lot of different options that we intend to provide for the war system; and this is one of the primary methods of player friction. So, we want to keep that compelling, interesting from a design perspective, which all of these different war types are intending to provide. And throughout Alpha-2, we'll be introducing additional node war event types.[28] – Steven Sharif
- Some node war types will have more PvE objectives and fewer PvP objectives, and vice-versa.[29]
- Some but not all node war types will flag a node's allies as combatants in addition to the node's citizens.[14]
- Certain node war types may impose a cap on how many players can join the events.[30]
- Logistic and supply stages may be present in some node war types.[31]
- Q: To what extent will logistics and supply lines be integrated into node wars?
- A: There has been some discussion around certain event types requiring those types of supplies within certain timeframes. So, acquiring material resources, transporting those material resources to specific locations, being stage components of event types. So, in that sense we do want to simulate these ideas of logistics and supply lines, but that's delegated to specific war event types.[31] – Steven Sharif
Node war declarations
Alpha-2 node war declaration UI.[32]
What this is going to do is it's going to flag us against each other: the citizens of our node and the citizens the node you declare on. And then we'll do battle over certain POIs in both of our zones of influence and gain control over them based on winning those events and those POIs; and once we've accumulated enough victory points we'll win the war, which gives our zone a big buff as well.[8] – Chris Justo
Mayors may declare different types of war against another node.[7][8][5][6]
- It costs resources to declare a node war. These are able to be gathered through special mayoral commissions relating to war preparations.[33][4] If citizens fail to complete these commissions in the timeframe then the node war cannot be declared, the cost of the commissions is sunk, and the commission slots will go on cooldown for some period of time.[34]
- Let's say the majority of citizens don't want to complete those commissions. Then the mayor is not capable of utilizing the action and they've wasted that commission slot for some period of time and the cost associated with deploying it.[35] – Steven Sharif
- Mayors may only declare war on nodes with sufficiently low Node-to-node reputation scores. This requirement may be disabled or reduced for Alpha-2 testing.[9][10]
- As reputation scores deteriorate; and when they deteriorate it serves as a predicate for the mayor to now have the option to start those war procedures. Now, still in the long run you're going to require buy-in from the citizens, and when people catch wind of that there are ways to disrupt to prevent the acquisition of some materials in order to acquire the wars scroll, to influence the land management score of the surrounding area, to capture caravans that are moving those supplies to the node: those are all 10,000 foot level strategy, not tactics but strategy, in how do I stop a rival node where I see my reputation score with them is low enough that they could start these actions.[36] – Steven Sharif
- Nodes have a default amount of war declaration charges. Once used, these take 18 hours to recharge.[21][37]
- Node wars can be declared at any time, but node war events will only spawn during server prime-time.[11][12]
- There may be multiple events that occur over a multi-day war between nodes that the sides can catch up in. Prime time does not influence war declaration, so you could have a war declaration occur at an off-hour time, but ultimately a war declaration is primarily just, 'we're openly flagged against each other,' and these events will spawn during prime time.[11] – Steven Sharif
- Node war declaration mutually flags the citizens of the warring nodes, including their allies (in the case of certain war types), as combatants.[13][14][11][8][15]
- The position we're in now from a design perspective is that certain war scrolls and war types will induct alliances as participants of the declared war, but not all wars will. So, that is predicated on the war scroll used.[14] – Steven Sharif
- Vassal nodes cannot declare a node war on their parent node but may be able to declare war against other vassals.[38][39]
- Q: Can you please explain the reason why nodes cannot declare war on their parent or vassal nodes?
- A: They've lost that battle already. The reason that they're a vassal is because they were outranked by their parent and the clutches of vassal ship are strong and any insubordination or uprising is killed in its roots.[13] – Steven Sharif
- There is no proximity restriction on war declaration.[38]
- Neither player or NPC mercenaries are present node wars.[40][27]
- Q: Us it possible to be hired as a mercenary when I'm not a citizen of the node?
- A: There's not a direct mercenary contract system, however there will be certain war scrolls that will be available in the future, not obviously at the entrance of A2, but there will be certain war scrolls that could be cooperative: that allow multiple nodes to joint declare war; and also potential defensive pacts and treaties that exist at the diplomacy level between nodes. So, those types of systems are intended.[27] – Steven Sharif
Node war events
Node war events are initiated by Mayors when declaring war on another node.[7][8]
- Node wars can be declared at any time, but node war events will only spawn during server prime-time.[11][12]
- Certain node war types may impose a cap on how many players can join the event.[30]
- Node war events are predominantly open-world. Instanced objectives might be added to node war events in the future.[44]
- None -
Server prime-time
Objective-based PvP events such as node sieges, castle sieges, guild wars, and node wars will occur within a prime-time window somewhere between 3PM and 9PM server realm time. This is subject to testing.[45][46][47]
- The Alpha-2 phase-2 prime-time window starts at 8PM in the server realm's timezone:[21]
- Guild wars and node wars can be declared at any time, but the objectives will only spawn during the prime-time window.[11][12]
- The key about the server prime time is that events cater to prime time. So, these inflection points where our expectation from a gameplay design is to allow or afford players an opportunity to participate in highly impactful events within the game: Those get delegated to prime time.[11] – Steven Sharif
Node-to-node reputation
- Node-to-node reputation can be affected by trade agreements and completing mayoral commissions.[49][17][50]
- Mayors are able to declare a node war on a node with a sufficiently low Node-to-node reputation score.[10]
- Mayors may attempt to utilize node mandates to perform actions that degrade reputation with another node, but these require buy-in from the node's citizenry.[51]
- Q: If two nodes are friendly towards each other but a new mayor wants to unilaterally start a war, how many mayoral cycles would it take for the new mayor to degrade node relations to the point that a war commission would become available?
- A: That's a very very good question. So, that includes a system that hasn't yet fully been implemented, which is our mandate power system; and mandates are essentially powers that the mayor will have available to them in order to enact certain policies; and some policies might make it possible for the mayor to degrade node relationships faster than would normally be available, but cost him more mandate power in order to enact those policies. Now this requires some level of buy-in from the citizenship: Not just the fact that he got elected, but these policies that get enabled will require some opt-in participation from the broader citizenship. And if then he is granted some of those emergency power acts that the policies provide. he could skip the standard degradation period or time in order to enact either a war event or some other type of adverse relationship type action with the node.[51]
- Node policies can be enacted by Mayors to increase node-to-node reputation gains.[48]
- At the beginning of Alpha-2 node diplomacy will primarily be conducted informally. More systems will be introduced throughout Alpha-2 that enable diplomatic relationships between nodes, such as trade agreements and routes between nodes.[52][17][18][6]
- Q: There seems to be many ways nodes can hurt each other through PvP means. Are there ways to hurt rival nodes without a direct PvP system or component?
- A: There are less straightforward ways to affect a node than PvP. Some of those ways can be through commissions that might help to degrade the reputation between nodes that have alliances or trade partnerships with each other. Some means might be through [the] land management system, where you can sap the resources of the surrounding area for the node, driving population away from that. [Some] might be through policy choices that certain nodes can take, which help to isolate some of the actions that your neighboring nodes can take. It can be through vassalship- There's a lot of different systems that are secondary and not necessarily PvP Centric that we intend to provide nodes the ability to interact with.[49] – Steven Sharif
Node politics
There won't be a civil war mechanic within nodes but there will be scope for internal political conflicts; such as undermining the current leadership and disrupting trade.[53]
- The only way to remove an elected mayor prior to the end of their term is by destroying the node.[54]
We want consequences to matter and if that person got elected then you need to work within the means of the mechanics to get them unelected.[54] – Steven Sharif
Node sieges
Node sieges were released in Alpha-2 phase-2.[55][56][57]
As some areas in the world grow, others will fall. This is the foundation of the living, breathing world that is Ashes of Creation, where players will have the ability to make important decisions that matter in the longevity of an area becoming a city, or whether to siege a rival town. Rise above the ashes, create the world around you, and be a part of the story that unfolds because of your actions and decisions.[58] – Margaret Krohn
Node sieges enable players to destroy nodes starting at Village (stage 3).[58] This paves the way for new development and access to the locked content in surrounding nodes. Due to this dynamic, political strife and intrigue play an important role in the structure of the world.[60][61][62][63][64]
- Sieging nodes will not be an easy task for the attackers. Cities and metropolises will have a considerable defensive advantage.[65][64]
- We do want there to be some semblance of advantage for defenders, because losing your node is a pretty big deal, but but at the same time we do want it to be a fight that is winnable by either side to some extent.[65] – Margaret Krohn
- PvE-oriented players will have alternative ways to participate in sieges, such as fulfilling buy orders and mayoral commissions to fund the siege, or constructing siege weapons to support either the attackers or defenders.[66]
- If you own a home in a node and you don't want to see that home destroyed, you need to defend that city![67] – Steven Sharif
- Lower level characters will have usefulness in mass combat that does not depend on their level, such as manning siege weapons, helping repair fortifications, bringing proximity-based buffs to key positions, using stealth or scaling walls. These types of things are relevant to the tide of battle and do not require the player to be max-level or have high combat stats.[68]
- There will be systems that mimic some of the mechanics of sieges, but there won't be practice sieges.[69]
- The majority (~80%) of content in Ashes of Creation is open-world but there may be instanced battles within castle and node sieges where specific groups can participate in small, short-duration objective-based battles for specific waypoints.[60][70][71][72][61][73][74][62]
- Node sieges were released in Alpha-2 phase-2.[55][56][57]
- Alpha-2 node sieges are open-world, but they include a temporary registration and approval process for both attackers and defenders to manage the number of participants during testing.[75]
- The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) does not incorporate node destruction but instead offers other rewards for successful node attacks/defenses.[76]
- Participants on the winning team will receive rewards via mail.[55]
- We are going to be putting in a temporary kill zone. So there will be registration on behalf of the defenders and on the attackers that will have an approval process for the attacker who laid the siege scroll and for the defender whose node it is to approve participants. If you're not on the registration list and you're in the vicinity of the fight, you will have a countdown and then you'll be murdered unless you leave the area. So, that's a temporary solution to ensure that we can keep the numbers at around 250 to 300 players roughly for these events until we get higher capacity capability.[75] – Steven Sharif
Visuals
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Video, May 31, 2024 (57:56).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (53:55).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (50:16).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Video, May 31, 2024 (4:24).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Livestream, April 29, 2022 (27:42).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 City hall.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 Video, May 31, 2024 (21:14).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 Video, May 31, 2024 (17:03).
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:19:06).
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:40:25).
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:48:21).
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:10:48).
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:52:02).
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Interview, July 19, 2020 (24:34).
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Video, May 31, 2024 (1:04:30).
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Blog: Development Update with Village Node.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Livestream, August 31, 2023 (44:21).
- ↑ Video, April 5, 2018 (41:48).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:44:55).
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 2025-03-27 Alpha-2 Update Notes.
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:50:04).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:12:38).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (0:46).
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Video, May 31, 2024 (1:05:54).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (1:05:17).
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:46:56).
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 Video, May 31, 2024 (21:54).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:14:35).
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:53:03).
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:08:58).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (13:14).
- ↑ Livestream, January 11, 2025 (1:54:39).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:43:03).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (1:43:03).
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (1:40:25).
- ↑ 2025-03-13 Alpha-2 Update Notes.
- ↑ 38.0 38.1 Livestream, May 31, 2024 (1:58:06).
- ↑ Blog - Know Your Nodes - The Basics.
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:20:00).
- ↑ Livestream, March 29, 2024 (2:21:10).
- ↑
- ↑ Video, May 31, 2024 (20:13).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:09:55).
- ↑ Interview, July 29, 2020 (31:05).
- ↑ Interview, July 18, 2020 (13:13).
- ↑ Interview, July 8, 2020 (22:37).
- ↑ 48.0 48.1 Livestream, August 26, 2022 (1:12:40).
- ↑ 49.0 49.1 Livestream, August 30, 2024 (1:14:52).
- ↑ Livestream, August 31, 2023 (39:17).
- ↑ 51.0 51.1 Livestream, September 27, 2024 (1:58:16).
- ↑ Livestream, May 31, 2024 (2:20:34).
- ↑ Livestream, May 24, 2017 (40:50).
- ↑ 54.0 54.1 Livestream, June 28, 2019 (1:26:14).
- ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 Livestream, March 28, 2025 (18:28).
- ↑ 56.0 56.1 Livestream, November 27, 2024 (19:51).
- ↑ 57.0 57.1 2024-11-27 - Development Update with Alpha Two Giants and Demons.
- ↑ 58.0 58.1 Blog - Know Your Nodes - Advance and Destroy.
- ↑ Livestream, March 30, 2025 (1:32:23).
- ↑ 60.0 60.1 Interview, November 10, 2024 (13:47).
- ↑ 61.0 61.1 Livestream, April 28, 2023 (1:28:14).
- ↑ 62.0 62.1 Interview, June 13, 2021 (36:38).
- ↑ Interview, May 11, 2018 (44:20).
- ↑ 64.0 64.1 A reactive world - Nodes.
- ↑ 65.0 65.1 Livestream, February 28, 2025 (28:10).
- ↑ Livestream, January 11, 2025 (22:09).
- ↑ Video, April 30, 2017 (5:31).
- ↑ Interview, July 8, 2020 (1:12:51).
- ↑ Twitch Bustin - Practice Sieges?
- ↑ Livestream, July 3, 2024 (1:59:34).
- ↑
- ↑ Podcast, May 10, 2024 (46:50).
- ↑ Livestream, March 31, 2023 (1:00:16).
- ↑ Livestream, January 28, 2022 (17:50).
- ↑ 75.0 75.1 Livestream, November 27, 2024 (1:22:39).
- ↑ Livestream, February 28, 2025 (28:54).